The Hebrew Wikipedia 5th anniversary

The original Hebrew version of this press contact was sent to the major news desks and journalists in Israel on the occasion of the 5th anniversary of the Hebrew Wikipedia. An Arabic translation is also available.

Tammuz 4, 5778
July 7, 2008

– Press Release –

The Hebrew Wikipedia Celebrates its 5th Anniversary and Reveals its most Popular Articles

The Hebrew Wikipedia, the free collaborative online Hebrew language encyclopedia, celebrates tomorrow (July 8th) 5 years of existence. During the past five years the Hebrew Wikipedia has become a main source of information for millions of web surfers. The number of its articles has exceeded 78,000, many of which are considered to be an exclusive source of information in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew Wikipedia has approximately 50,000 registered users, and is one of the 10 most viewed websites in Israel (according to GoogleTrends and Alexa).

On the occasion of this special event, statistical data regarding the second half of He Wp's fifth year (starting January 2008) are hereby revealed: during these six months, over 180 million views have been recorded; the most popular article is Sex, leading with 207,000 views (a little more than 0.1% of all views); followed by the article Israel, with 194,000 views, Google and Jerusalem with 164,000 views each.

Gil Cahana and the Mexican illustrator Mariana Ruiz designed special logos for the 5th birthday. These logos symbolize the collaborative work which characterizes Wikipedia. Furthermore, The From Stub to Top League prize-winning writing contest starts tomorrow. In this contest, taking place for the 5th time, Wikipedians compete in writing high quality articles. A panel of judges made up of veteran Wikipedians will announce the best articles, whose authors will be rewarded.

Logo designed by Gil Cahana
Logo designed by Mariana Ruiz
Logo designed by Mariana Ruiz

The Hebrew Wikipedia is a project of the global Wikimedia Foundation, operating similar projects in 250 languages. The Hebrew project is considered one of the most successful projects among them. On the occasion of the He Wp 5th anniversary, Florence Nibart-Devouard, chairperson of the WMF Board, says: "The Hebrew Wikipedia is one of our most active projects, thanks to one of the most enthousiastic of our communities. We are deeply thankful to all the editors who have shaped Wikipedia into what it is today - a gift of knowledge to the world, and to future generations." David Shay, one of the founders of the He Wp, who is considered the most active Wikipedian, says: "we have undoubtedly all reasons to be pleased with the achievements of Hebrew Wikipedia, taking into account both the number of writers and the number of articles which we have reached within the first five years. Nevertheless, we should extend our reach to the public and recruit more writers to the Hebrew Wikipedia; this is our mission for the five years to come."

The Hebrew Wikipedia is in an ongoing development process. It has now a proper coverage of many fields, among which are animal kingdom, sociology, education, law, literature, physics, mathematics, computer science, history and many more. A special emphasis is put on articles which hold special significance to the Hebrew language reader, like Judaism, the Holocaust, Jewish history, the IDF and so on. The high quality of its articles, its writers who come from various backgrounds, and its millions of readers — all contribute to the acknowledgement of this ambitious project as a major source of information in the Hebrew language.

Hebrew Wikipedia: Data and Figures (March 2008)

Notably active writers in March 2008: 660
New registrants per month: 80
New articles per day: 90
No. of times an article is edited after being written: 26 in average
No. of edits in Hebrew Wikipedia since its founding: 5,000,000

Milestones of the Hebrew Wikipedia and presentation of the new logos

Writing Contest - "From Stub to Top League"

About Wikimedia Israe

Wikimedia Israel (Hebrew: ויקימדיה-ישראל, Arabic: ويكيمديا إسرائيل), the Israeli chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, is a registered NPO, operating in cooperation with the international Wikimedia Foundation for the purpose of promoting knowledge and education in Israel through the gathering, creating and distribution of free content. The global Wikimedia Foundation is an organization which supports many open-code projects, the most popular of which is the Wikipedia encyclopedia, whose main goal is to allow each and every individual in the world free access to sources of data and information.

For more details please visit: http://il.wikimedia.org